French official prioritises 'people' before 'statues'

While international efforts for the preservation of the pre-Islamic buddha statues of Afghanistan continue, a French official told Agence-France-Presse in Paris on Thursday that world attention should be focused on the suffering of the Afghan people. The socialist chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the [National] Assembly, Francois Loncle, said that "however regrettable the loss of pre-Islamic cultural heritage may be" with the destruction of Buddhas in Afghanistan, "we must above all intervene and take action on behalf of the Afghan people, and in particular on behalf of women, among whom this is taking the heaviest toll every day". UNESCO special envoy Pierre Lafrance told IRIN on Thursday that he still hoped to convince the Taliban leadership to halt the planned destruction of ancient Afghan shrines and statues, with a possible trip this weekend to the Afghan capital Kabul. According to Kyodo News Service, a three-member Japanese parliamentary delegation is on its way to Kandahar to meet the Taliban leaders and urge them to withdraw the destruction order. Meanwhile, protest rallies against the destruction of Buddhist statues were held in Kathmandu on Thursday, according to Nepalese media reports. About 5,000 people belonging to different Buddhist organisations and students from different schools participated in the rally.